Read Odd Mom Out for Free Online Page B

They’re only children once, and I don’t want to miss a thing.”
    This is why I was feeling uncomfortable.
    I have to work—it’s not a choice—yet my work isn’t just a paycheck, it’s who I am, what I love to do. “I agree. That’s why I’ve made a point of working from home.”
    “So smart. Because those full-time jobs are so hard on families and children.”
    I don’t have a part-time job. I definitely have a full-time job, and I think Lana knows it. I think Lana’s being clever and slightly unkind.
    “You’re very lucky you have such a supportive husband,” Lana adds sweetly. “He must really help pick up the slack.”
    “Is that what men do?” I ask just as sweetly. “Pick up the slack?” Either Lana is living in la-la land or she’s just trying to push my buttons. Virtually all of my friends are married, and while most are still happily married and most would marry their husbands all over again, most also wouldn’t say their husbands make their lives, or their work, easier.
    Lana blinks, taken aback. “Uh . . . well . . . I don’t know.”
    Her expression looks about to crumple, and I feel a ping of remorse. “So how many children do you have?” I ask, trying to change the subject and move us into safer territory.
    Lana grabs gratefully on to the new topic. “Just these two, Paige and Peter. They’re twins.” She pauses. “Fraternal.”
    Yeah, I guessed that.
    Lana leans toward me to whisper conspiratorially, “I just wish we’d thought a little more about the names. My son gets teased at school all the time.”
    “For Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater?”
    She stiffens uncomfortably. “
No.
For Peter Parker.” She pauses, waits for me to get it. I don’t get it.
    “Peter Parker,” she repeats a trifle impatiently. “As in Spider-Man.”
    “Ah. Sorry. I haven’t read the comics in years.”
    “But the movies . . . ?” she persists. After a moment she shakes her head, her cheeks flushed nearly as pink as her fruity Juicy Couture tracksuit. “So are you going to the emergency parent meeting this afternoon?” But she doesn’t wait for me to ask, launching immediately into an explanation. “It’s about the kindergarten nightmare.”
    “What nightmare?”
    “You haven’t heard?”
    “I’m afraid we’ve been . . . traveling.”
    Lana shudders. “It’s a disaster. A complete fiasco, that’s what it is. Those poor kids. And their parents!”
    I just shake my head.
    Lana leans even closer, her hand pressed to her throat, and whispers, “They’re sending all the Points kindergartners to the Lakes.”
    She delivers the information with a note of triumph, and I stare at her blankly. Obviously I’m missing the point. “Forever?”
    “No, for the
year,
until the school board can figure out what to do with all the kids. Despite the remodel a couple years ago, Points Elementary has already outgrown its space, and so all the incoming kindergartners are going to be bused to Lakes Elementary.” She pauses, stares at me. “Can you believe it?”
    “Bused,” I repeat, wondering why children are being bused to a school that is less than half a mile away from their own.
    “Exactly! Those little children bused and then mixed with kindergartners from the other school. They’re not even being kept separate. No, Lakes teachers will be teaching Points kids, and Points teachers will be teaching Lakes kids—awful, that’s all I can say.”
    “But it’s just for one year, isn’t it? And don’t most of the kids play on the same sports programs anyway? I know Eva’s soccer team last year had children from Enatai, Points, and the Lakes—”
    “But families, siblings,
separated.
And now the Lakes wants one-sixth of our auction money, too. As if we wanted our children to attend their school!”
    Now is one of those times I think I should read the Points school bulletins more closely or maybe attend a PTA meeting or tiptoe into the back-to-school brunch so I can put faces to names